I took a look at video from Game Wisdom on the Paradox model of sales for post-launch content expansion in comparison to other 'games as a service' model of games and games that rely solely on DLC content to expand game play. Paradox Interactive is a game publisher for design studios under it (Paradox Design Studio) and many other game developers that are not, necessarily, held by Paradox Interactive. As Paradox Interactive publishes games tend to cater towards the Grand Strategy market it has some positives and negatives going for it versus other publishers for developers in the standard 'games as a service' model area.
The first area of major difference is that many of its publishers host boards on PI seeking feedback into their games. PDS does this and includes feedback from its developers who work in conjunction with the feedback which often spurs on discussions that lead to future content. This is not unique to PI as other publishers will do this. What separates PI and its Developers is that this takes place not in the typical Shooter or Action genre with high-paced, fast action are the norm. There the 'economy' of a game is important especially for free-to-play titles that need in-game linked 'monetization' to garner income for further development. The compelling game loop of such action games requires constant updates, refreshes and attempts to further monetize the game via expansions and new items to purchase. As 'Surviving Mars' is the game that is brought up as problematical, it should be asked: does it fit into the action category? No, it does not. It is part of the Grand Strategy game group utilizing a Paradox methodology for continual feedback and improvement for new game material.
Thus the second part of the problem presented for this game: it was released without key features that most city-builder games require and was seen as such by the gamers who purchased it. Further the first DLC fills in those holes, yet requires a separate purchase. Once filled the game plays in a substantially different way than it did at launch. Rightly criticized for this, the move was to address fan needs in a paid for expansion.
Does this happen in other PI published Grand Strategy games?
The methodology of Paradox for Grand Strategy or City Builder type games is to improve the game playing process via a dual track of paid-for content as DLCs and free updates to the base game, often addressing the problems of DLC integration into the game. This has happened with Crusader Kings 2 and, more importantly, Stellaris. Players of the base game of Stellaris would understand the major game mechanics as a system within the base game, and yet if they purchased all the upgrades at one shot and updated the game, they would be unprepared for the complexity that greeted them in Stellaris. Everything has been revamped, sometimes via DLCs and sometimes via patches. What Stellaris didn't have was missing fundamental game mechanics required for its genre: as a game it was playable, enjoyable and didn't require DLCs to make a complete experience.
In the City Builder genre my recent experiences are limited and historical game playing of prior generations of games only gives me some overall and broad knowledge of City Builders, yet the fundamentals of income, management of resources and expansion should remain. If any of the basics of how to gather resources (or garner them via trade or general income), order up buildings to be built, and then have an infrastructure to maintain said structures (with Overhead and Management costs) were not well integrated or missing from the game, then it can be said to be broken and not worthy of being a finished game. If there were items that were required that were physically impossible to purchase or required far more resources than could ever be gathered, no matter the size of the city (or base), then the game has shipped with broken game mechanics and lack of game balance.
Those are immediate criteria for a City Builder style of game and can be generalized into: never show a player something they should be able to do and then deny them the path and means to do it. And that is a touchstone for all game types, without respect to genre. Hiding the way to get it is allowed and that requires player ingenuity to find, yet the path to it must be available in the game.
Game mechanics must reflect what is allowed to be done in the game, and if the player is unable to do them then a pathway to doing them must be contained in the game. To facilitate that a User Interface will be used as the means of explaining content, showing what can be done, and what else is available to the player. Additionally any history or background material can also be given in the UI, so that the player can better understand game mechanics which they may gloss over to just start the game. This often requires a tutorial game in which game mechanics are shown to the player via the UI, so that the player understands how what they have learned is then implemented within the game. A tutorial is not required and simply bringing up hints in minor on-screen boxes or information areas is another way to do this so as to not interrupt game play, yet still offer information.
What is the model that Paradox uses, in general, on games it publishes? It is an odd system, to say the least, though it depends upon a non-broken and relatively polished game shipping that may have a few bugs, and is then patched to get rid of them. As a publisher, the design studio is then on task with a successful game to start adding in more content on a regular basis, and this has worked well in the Grand Strategy genre with updates to already published games adding in more story content, new game mechanics and new ways to play within the existing framework. The recent "Holy Fury" DLC for Crusader Kings 2 opened up Pagan Reformation, which had been added via prior content, but regularized it with a set of game mechanics that may or may not be good but are well understood and integrated into the game. This opened an entire new category of play that features much variation and allows for the changing of game play for Pagans while not changing much for the standard religions. The Stellaris MegaCorp DLC added a new form of corporation built on franchising, then put in additional government ethics including a criminal type. It was now possible to create a MegaChurch or Interstellar Criminal Syndicate that both operate like a MegaCorp, and each has its own ways of approaching the game within those restrictions. A recent story DLC featuring archaeology, artifacts and relics added in many new back-stories and put in some new game mechanics for the use of said artifacts and relics. Some of the stories are short and others span multiple sites, and not all endings are happy for the past or present, either. This has been going on for years.
By including end-user feedback and mod creation for many of its games, Paradox the publisher encourages the design studios under it to participate in the user community to the point of actual developers holding weekly or monthly dev meetings to discuss what they have found inside their individual game communities. What happens is that the individual games have core mechanics updated and enhanced, and then purchased DLCs integrate with those updated core systems, which allows developers to have a wide range of issues to work with and take in the feedback to create new content and systems for the game engine. Getting into CK2 or Stellaris, at this point, becomes a heavy cost proposition for potential players who must be enthused enough about the genre and game, itself, to then put in far, far, far more than $60. While some groups of DLC are bundled and discounted and cosmetic packs, music packs and such tend to come in at extremely low or no cost, the cost of getting into CK2 might actually stop potential players from picking up the game if they do not understand how the game is supported. It is possible to pick and choose from the DLCs and still have a perfectly playable game. With Stellaris the entire way of playing has been radically altered, so playing the base game is in no way similar to playing it with expansions added in: the core mechanics have been extremely refined, the economics improved and the effects of that are now for every government type and every play style. Stellaris was very playable upon release, but now it is a more detailed simulator that requires far more attentive game play than it did on release. That is not a bad thing, but it is something that does happen to Paradox published titles.
The model is to publish a strong base game with good game mechanics with content to make for satisfying game play and good to excellent replayability. After that extra content is provided by DLCs either via Story Packs that can tweak existing game mechanics (sometimes adding in new, story oriented mechanics) or full DLC extensions with new game mechanics that can fundamentally alter and extend existing mechanics. There is a strong feedback loop with developers having sites with the publisher so that fans can interact with the development studio and its personnel, so that the personnel can give an idea of what they are doing and fans can give feedback on areas where the game has areas that are lacking in robust elements, where stories may not feel 'complete' and should be extended or polished, along with outright bugs to the game. Included in this are Quality of Life issues on everything from the interface to the game (which can often be opaque to the new user) to addressing base game problems for building, extending and interacting with game elements (or the lack of some elements entirely). That is a good and strong model which very few other game companies even try to do and is almost completely unknown in the AAA part of the game community. As smaller studios in the Paradox publishing domain understand that continuous feedback with the gamers and fans of the game is essential to game longevity, there is a different view taken with that active game community trying to service them with free updates to the base game mechanics AND add in new content that the developer wants with fan input.
If Surviving Mars has deep and fundamental problems with its game play, game mechanics and Quality of Life as compared to Cities Skyline or any other equivalent builder style game, then that is a black mark for Paradox as a publisher and its game development studio. The requirement is to have a complete and relatively well polished game go out the door, and that game is eminently playable and replayable with no major bugs, glitches or game mechanics issues: it must be a solid and good game. The 'ship now, fix later with DLC' concept is not only poor but unacceptable to gamers who have come to expect quality content from Paradox publishing and points to poor QC on their part and not holding their developer accountable for shipping a game that was not solid and good at the outset. That is because the publisher and developer depend on a long-lived game model where a game can continue expanding and offering new game play to satisfy existing fans and entice new players to the franchise.
Crusader Kings 2 was published in 2012 the year after The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was published (and did wrap up its DLC content in 2012), and 3 years before The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was published. From that CK2 is an old, old game, yet it is continually refreshed and expanded with new content, new stories, new game play mechanics and free downloadable content that offers some nice bits an pieces for how units look and music, as well as some user oriented piece to allow for customizing the at-start ruler the player wants for their next run. A 7 year old game that is continually patched, updated, and has new content coming out for it on an annual or bi-annual schedule, with further depth of game play done for the fixes is something that no other publisher attempts to do outside of the MMORPG realm. Yet this is a Grand Strategy RPG. Likewise Stellaris came out in 2016 and had a lot of new content coming out for it early on, and still receives attention for new Stories and thematic game play extension with proper DLCs. Getting Surviving Mars FIXED so that the fans are satisfied and then finding a way to deal with the black mark (either real or just perceived) of a game that wasn't fully finished on launch is vital and necessary for Paradox publishing. Fixes could include something like adding in the DLC to the base game for free or for a very minor charge as bundle, combining the two pieces and calling it Surviving Mars Enhanced (or something similar), and giving those who bought the base game a refund for the first DLC if they purchased it and sending it out for free to those who have the base game but not the DLC. Fixing community relations must be a top priority as Paradox publishing has a reputation of satisfying the fan community so that those fans will continue to buy updates for the long haul. Look at CK2 and Stellaris to get an idea of what that means for long-term revenue for the companies involved. Hurting that reputation and not fixing the problem will start to make current gamers leery of new titles from Paradox publishing, and might start to turn off some existing fans when they see how another fan base is being treated by the publisher.
Shipping broken or perceived to be broken games is not what Paradox does for publishing. The rest of the industry does it to get easy money up front and then may decided to drop a broken game after it has made its initial money back or if players are not supporting new content. That is a disease that will kill Paradox as a publisher and many of its studios as the model they work from is the exact opposite of that. This can be fixed as the first DLC for Surviving Mars is seen as a major fix to the problems the game had at launch, and the solutions are obvious on how make good as a company that relies on a business model for long-term survival. I dearly hope that this is fixed, even though I don't normally play in that genre, it did look interesting as a game but seemed a bit generic. After playing other games published by Paradox and looking at what it takes to get financially involved with games that have been continually supported for years, it is safe to say that this business model is easy to see. Screwing it up is easy, too. Fixing the reputation after screwing it up takes guts and determination to actually realize that a game was shipped without being properly finished and making good on finishing it and then finding a way to mollify players who purchased the broken game. They don't even have to apologize openly, just fix the problem and make sure that existing players have a complete game experience that was promised at launch. That is easy to do, though a bit hard on the bottom line as it admits to screwing up internally. The player base doesn't care about that: they want the promise that was made, not the paid for completing of the game after it was launched as feature complete. This doesn't even have to be a 'real' problem but a perceived one, and fixing the latter even if the company believes it isn't a real problem is essential: long-term sales and annual revenue from new content is how this works at Paradox and screwing it up at start means lowered long-term revenue.
I like this business model! It does require ethics and commitment to producing and publishing games that players like, giving players a means to interact with the developers and then giving an idea of what areas new content will be in to build enthusiasm among players. Feedback and incorporating external ideas means that games can be expanded in new and different ways, often beyond what the original developer had ever thought about. The result is good games that addresses the player base, incorporates ideas from the player base and then seeks to make sure that this is known to that same player base. That is a service model that ISN'T 'games as a service', that's for damned sure. And that doesn't even get into the aspects of how modding is generally encouraged and means for custom player made content to be added into the game made known. With an extensive and even officially recognized fan modding area, many developers now get to see how their games are repurposed to other venues. Try and get that from AAA gaming today.
